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Once I was in conversation with a client and mentioned something
about “being present to Truth”. Suddenly he exclaimed, “Ohhhhh. Present to Truth.” He explained that he had read
over and over again in spiritual teachings about the importance of being
mindful, or present to what he was doing, whatever it was, as a way to peace.
He practiced this for years but he did not experience anything remarkable. It
had never been explained to him that he needed to make the conscious effort to
be open to Truth in the present. He thought that merely being present was
supposed to be enough. And once he did practice being present to Truth his experience
was transformed.
This is another example of how cause and effect in spiritual
practice are not always adequately explained (see last week’s article (http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2016/04/theres-no-need-to-put-cart-behavior.html).
Someone has a moment of being present and they experience Truth (a transcendent
experience of peace or joy, the awareness…

If I was Queen of All Things Spiritual I would decree that
no one could have access to spiritual teachings that were more advanced than
they were ready to understand, practice, or accept. I say this because students
(and this once included me) do so much harm to themselves reading things that they
are not ready to understand or attempting practices that do not come naturally
to them. In their guilt they judge themselves as failing because they do not
measure up to what they study. And what they study they can only try to
understand through the limitations of what they’ve already experienced and this
leads to distortions. I spend a lot of time reassuring readers and clients that
they are not failing because they have not yet attained in understanding or
practice what someone more advanced has attained. They are in a process and
judge against themselves for being in a process. I also spend a lot of time
clarifying experiences that they have not yet had but that the ego has
distorted or…

A reoccurring theme in my work as a mentor is relationships
and the need to set boundaries with others who are unhealthy. I came across
this and thought it offered a useful guide for determining which relationships
need boundaries: Everyone Can’t Be
In The Front Row
Life is a theater. Invite your audience carefully. Not
everyone is healthy enough to have a front row seat in our lives. There are
some people in your life that need to be loved from a distance. It is amazing
what you can accomplish when you let go, or at least minimize, your time with
draining, negative, incompatible, not-going-anywhere relationships/friendships.
Observe the relationships around you. Pay attention.
Which ones lift and which ones lean?
Which ones encourage and which ones discourage?
Which ones are on a path of growth uphill and which ones are
going downhill?
When you leave certain people, do you feel better or feel
worse?
Which ones always have drama, or don’t understand, know or
appreciate you?
The more …

Often I laugh with my students over how our inner work chews
up time without any outward activity to show for it. There is a lot of
vigilance and processing required on the path to peace! So we have a sense of
being occupied but we can’t really explain this to others because the work is
going on only in our minds.
Whenever I hear about theoretical physicists and their
“thought experiments” I can identify. They spend a lot of time just thinking
about how the universe of form works. They may eventually jot down some
formulas, but for much of the time they are conceptualizing. It is the same
with this inner work for inner peace. We may eventually write what we learn in
a journal but for much of the time we are busy with understanding the workings
of our own mind. We are occupied observing, analyzing, and processing what we
learn.

The deeper you go into this process the more important busy-work
for the body becomes to you. Those mundane, repetitive, every-day tasks like
washing the dish…

I have been a student of A Course in Miracles since 1984, a life coach since 2000, and a mentor for students of A Course in Miracles and 4 Habits for Inner Peace since 2006. You can learn more about me and what I offer at my website, www.acimmentor.com.